


Seven and a Half Cents

by executrix



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-28
Updated: 2013-12-28
Packaged: 2018-01-06 10:12:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1105581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/executrix/pseuds/executrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jayne's unpopular suggestion for the next job is quickly modified, with important input from Kaylee and Inara.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seven and a Half Cents

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lunabee34 (Lorraine)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorraine/gifts).



_Love songs for maids, so without bawdry, which is strange, with such delicate burdens of dildos and fadings, “Jump her and thump her”_ (The Winter’s Tale)

“Dunno why nobody ain’t grateful,” Jayne said, further crumpling up the rejected, coffee-ringed paper. “Got us a good job, and it ain’t even illegal.”

“Cause, you’re a working man yourself. Or, come from working folks, anyway,” Kaylee said. Zoe shrugged, either in agreement or bemused at the idea that it was worth explaining things to Jayne. 

“Even the Fed won’t touch this one,” Wash said. “I looked on the Cortex. Red Chief Mines has been left alone to handle its own labor problems.”

“Jayne, although as a group this crew has done some rather…marginal…things, you can see that there is sentiment that we ought not to accept an assignment to threaten, or even harm, union organizers to break a strike,” Shepherd Book said. 

“Mal? You wanna chirp up anytime, point out that it’s your boat and what you say goes?”

The cold vacancy of Mal’s eyes frightened even Jayne. “Money’s money,” he said. “And these fools never did nothin’ for us. They want to stick their heads up above the parapet? Hell, maybe we’ll shoot ‘em kinder than the next mob he hires.”

“Hires. Yeah. That’s my point,” Jayne said. “We got the money already.”

“Can’t give it back,” Kaylee said. “Some of it’s been et up, rest’s been chocked in as parts.”

Simon side-eyed Jayne, who burst out with, “What? When’d I ever tell you I was a choirboy? And if I did, it’d be on you for being dumb enough believe me.”

There was a moment of silence, broken by Simon’s elbow hitting the kitchen table. He put his chin in his hand, turned the situation over in his mind, and said, “Fine! Then we have now officially stolen Favelle’s money! It’s not like we never stole anything before! Let’s just get the hell out of here and make sure we never come back.”

Everyone started to talk at once, then everyone stilled at once as River said, “Skitter, skitter in the skirting board!” which sort of made sense because Zoe slammed the cupboard door and said, “When I cooked breakfast this morning there was six pouches of umeboshi, and now there’s five, and a packet of rice crackers is gone too.” She opened the cutlery drawer. “And a butter knife. Not that we ever got any butter to butter with it.” 

“Mouse’s intentions are not aggressive,” River said. 

“Awww, Yehsooa, tell me that we don’t got another girl snuck in,” Jayne said. “That ain’t nothin’ but trouble.” 

“I am compelled to candor,” River said. “Although, since it pisses you off, it is a pleasure as well as a duty.”

“Really?” Mal said. “Tell me plain, River. We got a stowaway?”

“Yes,” said the girl stepping out of the smuggler’s notch, who wasn’t River but did look a little like a larger, oaken rather than willowy version of her. She slumped, so that a flood of mud-brown hair covered half her face. Even slumped, the sleeves of her unflattering blue dress, with a dropped waist and a sailor collar, were obviously much too short. “Our house is hell. I want to get away from there. You want to run away? Excellent.” 

Zoe walked over to the girl and put her arm around her shoulder. “How old are you, honey?”

“Seventeen,” she said. 

“You got a name?” Jayne asked. “We’re a mite chary with ours, what with bein’ criminals and all like you overheard.”

“Margaret,” the girl said. 

“It is Margaret you mourn for,” River said. 

At varying speeds, the remaining people in the kitchen surmised what, given their usual run of luck, her last name would have to be, and then cursed and anathematized with varying degrees of elegance.

“Well, Miss Favelle, sorry for all the dust and dirt in them crannies you sneaked into,” Mal said. “You can go freshen up—Kaylee, show her where the ofuro’s at—and then Wash’ll take the mule and drop you off right near your house where’s we’re hopin’ you’ll pretend you just went to school regular and didn’t get kidnapped none.”

“Actually…” Simon said, and Jayne nodded. “I mean, of course we wouldn’t hurt her…wouldn’t hurt you, Miss Favelle, in fact we would consider you a principal in the transaction…”

“He means we’d cut you in on the take,” Kaylee said. “You just get used to him, after awhile.”

“Fifty-fifty?” the girl asked.

“No way!” Mal said. “We’re takin’ all the risks.”

They settled on 75% for the crew, 25% for the victim.

“How much money are we talkin’ about here?” Zoe asked. “Margaret, you got any brothers or sisters?” The ninth of eleven would, after all, have a lower market value than a sole heir. Margaret shook her head.

“Apple of your Dad’s eye? Worships the ground you walk on?” Jayne asked.

“He barely knows I’m alive.” Simon pulled up the Red Chief cortisite on his pocket computer and showed it to Zoe, who nodded. 

“Well!” Mal said. “Lots to talk about. Kaylee, would you take charge of our…hostage…for the next little while, while I figure out what to do?”

“Sure,” Kaylee said. “Maggie, OK with you if we stop by the engine room first? I tried a new brand of Tatum clips and I want to make sure the temp ain’t too high for them.”

Margaret earned Kaylee’s affections instantly, by gazing around in wonderment. “This is so cool,” she said. “We have a Lotus Pearl 709 shuttle, and I soup her up when I get the chance. The press regulator looks almost like a miniature of that.” Margaret knew her way around a hex wrench, which was helpful, as Kaylee was used to having to handle repairs and maintenance by herself unless Wash was available and it was something he knew how to do. However, Kaylee was used to working in silence, so she was slightly nettled by Margaret’s constant flow of talk, mostly about her best friend, Jill-Anne Thirkenshield.   
With the work tasks handled, Kaylee figured it was time to relax. She took Margaret to her cabin, and let her try on all of Kaylee’s clothes, although there was rather more of Margaret so they weren’t a good fit. The only thing she really liked was Kaylee’s coveralls. Kaylee dashed the stumps of her two lipsticks over Margaret’s lips (Passionate Coral on the top lip, Roseate Ruby on the bottom) but the effect was so awful that, by common consent, they wiped it off with a tissue. They also tried varying arrangements of Margaret’s hair. “It doesn’t matter,” Margaret said dully. “It never looks good.”

“So, you got a boyfriend?” Kaylee asked. “What’s he like?”

“I don’t! I never will because I’m too ugly! But I don’t mind!” Kaylee took this in.

“Personally, I’m just interested in fellas, but y’know, some girls like a handsome woman,” Kaylee said. “Specially if she dresses sharp. I bet Inara could give you some pointers, she Companions women sometimes.”

“Is everyone here sly?”

“Aw, hells no! But you can see as how crooks’d be less heaped up about that than the rubes. Wash and Zoe are crazy into each other. Mal ain’t sly, dunno who the Shepherd ain’t foolin’ with on account of bein’ a Shepherd, Inara, well, it’s business. River, dunno where her head would be at if it wasn’t real scrambled. Simon, of course. Right now Jayne’s havin’ to do with him, but I bet it’s in a real masculine way.” 

Mal got on the comm.. “Miss Favelle, can you come back to the dining area? Where you were before? We gotta take a capture of you, in kidnapping cases, Proof of Life is the big thing. They ain’t gonna pay if they think you’re already dead.”

Zoe took some captures. Jayne, Binky in hand, was cutting up old newspapers for the ransom note (purporting to come from the Interplanetary Workers of the ‘Verse). River fetched a bottle of soy sauce from the cabinet. Everybody squinted until Margaret poured a few drops over her thumb and affixed the print to the ransom note.

“Do we gotta cut off somethin’ of hers, make ‘em think we’re serious?” Jayne asked. “It’s kinda dee ree gooer in kidnappings, ain’t it?”

Margaret shivered, beginning to enjoy the adventure less. Then Shepherd Book made a snipping motion, pointing at Margaret’s long drab hair. Before anyone could say anything, River found the shears in the kitchen drawer—the ones used to cut the strapping tape off the bottles of water—and made a rough rope by twisting Margaret’s hair. And cutting it off, at the nape of her neck.

“Hey!” Kaylee said. “I thought you meant, just a lock of it! Not near to all of it!”

The hank of her hair sat in a dish in the middle of the table. Margaret felt like a snake saying goodbye and good riddance to its now-too-narrow old skin. 

“You met everybody else,” Kaylee said. “Let’s go to the shuttle, meet ‘Nara.”

“Oh!” Margaret said. “I think you must be the prettiest woman I ever met!”

Inara, used to gushing, said, “A lot of it is just confidence,” she said. “If you make people think that you are happy to see them, they will have good feelings about you. And if you have pride in yourself, they can see that, too.”

Kaylee and Inara conferred, sotto voce, and then Inara said, “Margaret, I can see you come from a good family. There’s a drinks cabinet over there. Why don’t you fix a small bowl of punch? And, Kaylee, that’s a good suggestion of yours. Could you ask Simon to bring them here?”

By the time Simon arrived, Inara thought that, once the archive was made available, she would be able to write the authorized Jill-Anne Thirkenshield biography. Possibly in three volumes. 

“You’ve been spending the day with Kaylee. Isn’t she great?”

“She’s so pretty!” Margaret said. “And so smart! And about good stuff like engines, not just scroll painting or Sino Studies.” Without preamble, she said, “Kaylee says you’re sly.”

“I tried my best! I wanted it to work…” he saw Inara’s raised eyebrow, and said, “Yes.”

“No, sorry, I stuck my foot in my mouth again.”

“Story of my life,” Simon said, and smiled at her.

“I asked because, is everybody horrible to you about it?”

“Almost everybody’s fine. That’s because I wasn’t in the middle, and you don’t have to be either. I mean, I am—I *was*--a surgeon in Osiris. That’s as Core as you can get. And we—that is, River’s my sister, I guess if you were her you’d know that but no one actually told you—come from a rich family anyway. And with rich people, especially if you have a good job, they don’t like it if you march in processions carrying banners. But even that, they’d have to put up with. If you’re poor, as long as you do your job in the factory, or work on a farm, you’re pretty much under the radar. OK, some people are very involved in some religions, they get very worked up. It’s the people in the middle of the ladder—especially in planets that are Core, but practically Rim and are afraid of falling back, or Rim but think maybe they can pass themselves off as Core if no one breathes too hard and tears the cellophane.” 

Inara gestured at a silk-covered screen. “You’ve tried on some of Kaylee’s clothes. See if you feel more comfortable in these?” Simon gave her a small parcel, hugged Inara, and left. After a few minutes, Inara peeked at the hinges of the screen to see if everything was all right. Margaret, enthralled, gazed at her own figure, in trousers, other-side-buttoned shirt, and bright crimson waistcoat. “I don’t feel like a boy,” Margaret said. “But I feel like me. Only, like you can see me, and I take up space.”

“The palace of womanhood has a thousand doors,” Inara said. “Now, on a more mundane note, I think I can neaten up your haircut a little. River made her point dramatically, but perhaps…” A few minutes later and a glass of punch apiece, Margaret’s hair had been trimmed to a side-parted shingle, with a wave of bangs over one eye. Inara brushed the hair clippings off the towel around Margaret’s neck, and held up a large hand mirror. 

“This is great!” Margaret blurted. “How did you know how to do that?”

“Sometimes Companions find ourselves in places where we can’t find a good hairdresser,” Inara said (omitting to mention that she had been a hairdresser’s apprentice when she caught the eye of a Guild recruiter). “Much of our job is looking good, enhancing whatever natural assets we have. And the rest is understanding people, sensing what is important to them. Sometimes there are things that are hidden within their hearts, with no one near them to share. A Companion can hold up a hand, can clasp a hand and bring someone across a bridge they could not cross alone. Do you want to touch me?” Inara asked.

“So much,” Margaret said. “So much.”  
***  
Wondering if everyone could observe the change in her (no, they couldn’t) Margaret re-joined the crew at the kitchen table, and did justice to the millet cakes and tofu-radish stew. 

Simon remembered something from the Red Chief annual report which, as an annual report, was public. When he found it, he tapped into a couple of databases that weren’t, and sent a few messages that weren’t exactly from the people who signed them. 

“You have any inheritance, family trusts or the like?” Zoe asked.

“Sure, but I don’t get anything until I’m eighteen. And then it’s just the income.”

Simon showed her how to access the numbered account he had set up for her share of the ransom money. “I think you should leave it there, let the interest build up,” he said. “Then, when you’re eighteen, added to your trust income, it should be enough to set you up on one of the outer Rim worlds where real estate prices are low.”

“My aunt Elfrida,” Kaylee said. “Kept a feed-and-grain store and mill. Everyone always wondered why a gal with a good business like that had to share a tiny little house, didn’t have but one bedroom, with Miss Umbershott the church organist.”

“Were they mean to her?” Margaret asked.

Kaylee shook her head. “Not as long as she keeps ‘em on their toes changin’ her will every alternate Tuesday.” (Margaret remembered something that stuck in her head from some Earth-that-Was book in Literature class. Poor old maids are funny, elegant ladies are too good to be bossed around by just any old husband.)

When it was time for the exchange, Wash flew the second shuttle (the mule docked in its cargo bay), with Margaret co-piloting and Zoe and the mare’s leg perched on the mule. He landed the shuttle in a wooded area, and they drove the mule to the drop-off point, with Zoe crouched in the bushes in case of trouble. Wash, in forbidding black ninja garb and with a huge false mustache (he asked Zoe nostalgically about growing his back and got a resounding rejection), stood with Margaret.

Red Chief’s Vice President for HR squinted. He hardly recognized Margaret, striding around in trousers, her chin pugnaciously forward and her shoulders back. He realized he’d seldom seen her face anyway, what with the hair all over it. He scanned her retinas and fingerprints, got confirmation that it was the same girl, and asked her if she was all right. “Yeah, I’m good,” Margaret said. “Those fiends didn’t harm you?” “Not one drop,” Margaret assured him. 

Meanwhile, Wash ran his own hand-held scanner over the carpetbag, which tested negative for bombs, bugs, flash grenades, and dye capsules. He set the bag down on the ground, opened it cautiously, and checked over the bundles. He couldn’t do a complete count, but there was at the very least a high percentage of cashy money to cut-up newspaper, so he nodded. “Good luck, kid,” he said, and waited for them to leave. Then he and Zoe hugged and danced around a little, secured the money bag, and headed back for the shuttle and an ASAP departure from the planet.

LATER

In a display of solicitude that lasted more than a week, Montague Favelle insisted on keeping his daughter where he could see her, so it was unofficial Take Your Daughter to Work Day when the tax auditor showed up. 

“Your latest estimated tax filing shows a company-wide seven and a half cent hourly raise,” the auditor said. “Reflected in the deduction taken for labor costs.” 

A girl, the plaid of whose uniform nearly melted into the wood paneling, stepped forward and squared her shoulders. “I was…well, there was some trouble about me. Father spent a lot of time resolving it. But he already knew about that…clerical error…and I’m sure that the checks to resolve it will be going out by the close of business today.” 

Eventually, Margaret returned to St. Agnes’s Academy for Young Ladies. To spare her the trauma of recounting her ordeal, all mention of her abduction had been suppressed, with the result that dozens of versions circulated throughout the upper forms of the school. “Come on over after Deportment,” Margaret told Jill-Anne. “I have a tapeburn of the Ibis Lake concert.”

“It’s so sad about Melon Popsicles Leung,” Jill-Anne said. “She has her Quince, it’s all over the Cortex, and then, pffft, she has to leave the band!” 

Margaret nodded. “It’s tragic! It’s, it’s, like the cycle of the seasons succeeding one another and the Winter King dying!” 

Jill-Anne looked deep into her eyes, as if seeing her for the first time. “Margaret! There’s a vein of poetry in your soul. Totally.”

“You should just see my diary.”

“You’d let me read your diary? Wow! Also, what happened to your hair?”

Margaret pulled the close-fitting knit cloche back from her forehead, and flipped her head to get the bangs out of her face (her hair was side-parted, and secured with the last of Simon’s hair mousse). 

“Diyudiyudiyu!” Jill-Anne said. “It’s such a shock to see you like that. Except…it looks really pretty.”

“You think so?”

“You look like a whole different person!”

“Thank Kuan-Yin for that!”

EVEN LATER THAN THAT

“See? All turned out just fine,” Jayne said. “I brought us a good job, we made good money, not a single shot fired. Damn. Bet there’ll be some fun next time, though.” He slid his hand inside Simon’s sleep pants, hooking his thumb in Simon’s navel, cupping the small roundness of Simon’s belly. “And that girl’ll never forget us.”

“I’ll never forget those trousers,” Simon said mournfully. “And that shirt…and that vest…”

“Gave you an extra fifty credits outta our shares, didn’t we?”

“Do you want to…have sex?” Simon said. He was a fast learner, considering the reaction that one time he’d said “make love.”

“Naaah,” Jayne said. “Not now. Tomorrow, maybe, when I wake up locked and loaded. Just feels good, huggin’ up against you. You’re warm and real compact. My sister Mylene used to walk ‘round the place with her thumb in mouth with one hand, holdin’ a sock monkey up to her face with the other. Musta give her some kinda comfort.”

“I’m immeasurably flattered,” Simon said.

“Hey, Mylene got it after Tilden and Noemie,” Jayne said. “Thing musta been five, six years old. So, musta been a A-Number-1 sock monkey.”

**Author's Note:**

> For years, I've been threatening to write a story based on "The Pajama Game," a musical, about a threatened strike in a pajama factory, with a song called "Seven and a Half Cents." This is not exactly that, but as I was "Racing With the Clock" (another song from the Pajama Game) I adopted some elements from it. 
> 
> I also basically sex-swapped the B plot from Jaynestown. Because I for one can believe that sleeping with Inara is good for your self-esteem.


End file.
